The band preview is a chance for parents, friends, and fans to come watch all three Howell high schools showcase their shows for the year. Howell, Central, and North’s bands all came together August 24 at the Don Muench memorial stadium with amazing determination showing on their faces.

The Spartan Regiment displayed its four-seasons-themed show “Colorfall.” The show, featuring the music of Eric Whitacre, starts out with all of the band on the ground, doing rhythmic movements to look like wheat in a field. The band was lively as they performed even if they weren’t playing their instruments throughout the whole show.

Junior band member Abigail Tarleton, who plays saxophone for the Spartan Regiment, was pleased with the band’s performance this early in the year.

“I was actually really happy with our performance, I thought it was really fun,” Tarleton said. “We still have a lot to work on — I mean it’s only the beginning of the season — but we’re doing pretty well for where we are.”

The color guard’s flags and dance moves reflected the theme. They had flags shaped like leaves in two different shades of green. They had trees made of pipe which held the flags so that they could be moved easier. The gold in the flags reflected the light as they moved in unison.

Aidan Koenig, band member and junior, believes the band was more put together than in the past.

“I think we did a lot better and sounded a lot better than last year. My favorite part was the adrenaline of going onto the field,” Koenig said.

Tarleton’s favorite part was getting to soak in what the band had done after all the hard work that they put into it.

“Honestly, I like the end, I mean it’s fun throughout the whole thing, but I like right when you’re done [and] you can see everyone around you soaking up the performance because you’re nervous and you don’t even remember it. The end is when it all comes back to you,” Tarleton said.

Howell’s band performed their show just before Central. Their show, “Infinity”, is filled with voiceover and many different stunts that looked as though it took a long time to get the hang of. Band members were stacked 2 – 3 times on top of each other. Their signs with large, Greek letters filled in the spaces in between band members and color guard. Their dedication showed through in their expressions as they performed.

Tarleton was not very biased with her opinions of the other bands. She enjoyed Howell’s show.

“We really liked Howell’s idea, but they really didn’t have as much done as Howell North I think. They always do well and they had a good show,” Tarleton said.

Senior color guard member Alyssa Rey was impressed with the job that Howell did.

“I think Howell High did really well because they have weapon, they were spinning swords and stuff, and we don’t do that this year and I’m really upset about that, but they looked really good with it and it really emphasized their show,” Rey said.

Howell North’s Knight Pride performed its show, “Jump,” featured the music of Van Halen along with multiple trampolines of different size. The use of the trampolines was very treacherous. In the middle of the show, a student dropped one of the larger instruments on the trampoline and in the midst of getting the instrument back up, had his mic get caught on the springs of the trampoline.

Junior Lexi Kroeger was watching as the student struggled to get the instrument back up.

“[When Howell North dropped the instruments] it was so bad. It goes with the whole anxiety of putting them on the trampoline, you can really damage or lose a lot of instruments by doing that risky routine,” Kroeger said.

Tarleton also weighed in on the Knight’s performance.

“North had a really neat idea, or at least I thought so, I heard some people say they didn’t think it was as cool of an idea. I thought it was interesting and it was full of energy, although they do need to work on cleaning it up,” Tarleton said.